Why Can't My MD be Doc Baker?

Remember Doctor Hiram Baker from Little House on the Prairie? His patients use to pay him with fruit pies, goats and chickens, and he never complained. He just did his job because he wanted to help the people in his community.

I wouldn't expect today's doctors to be paid in poultry, but how about some compassion and common decency for their patients?

RoadRage rarely goes to doctors because there hasn't been much need, but I have had a couple of bad experiences over the past few years.

When I tried to run my first marathon, I tore my Achilles tendon (self-diagnosis). After suffering through the pain for two months, I finally went to the doctor to find out what was wrong. Three hours and no X-ray later, I was told that there was nothing wrong with me. The doctor spent two minutes with me and asked what pain I was feeling. He then told me he couldn't do anything for me. That is, except for send me a bill for doing nothing.

That experience reminded me of the story my dad told me about my grandmother. She was in an elevator when her doctor came in and asked her how she was doing, since he had treated her for an ailment recently. She updated him, telling him she was doing fine, and two weeks later she received a bill for $50. The good doctor had charged her for a doctor visit for their elevator conversation.

More recently. Mrs. RoadRage went in for an out-patient back surgery. She'd been having back pain the last few years, and it finally became too much for her to endure, so she opted for surgery. The surgery took 45 minutes, and according to the doctors at Condell Medical Center, that warrants a bill for $40,000. Most of it was covered by insurance, but a good portion of it wasn't. The worst part was that we received two separate $1,000 charges for doctors who were in the room to monitor the equipment -- doctors who weren't in our insurance plan. We had no idea they were there, and the surgeon never gave us any forewarning, so that we can request doctors who were in our plan. We were never told until after the surgery, so for all we know, their presence could have just been (and most likely was) a fabrication to line the pockets of the medical facility.

Doc Baker had a lot of drawbacks -- no access to fancy equipment, no nurses to assist him, and no car to get him to emergencies. But, I wish the ideology of his mythological doctoring existed today -- physicians who truly care about their patients, and don't make up ways to falsely charge people for services that were never rendered.

Too many people in the medical profession today suck!

RoadRage